In My Garden...

      Well, as summer begins my garden is becoming quite big, green, wild, and beautiful.  Everything is thriving and blooming wonderfully from the poppies,

to the sunflowers,

the cadula,

and the zinnias,

and, of course, the forget-me-nots.

     Unfortunately it has been so incredibly hot the past couple of weeks that I haven't been able to spend nearly enough time out there attending to my plants.  Aside from rushing out to right toppled plants blown over by the crazy winds, or grabbing a quick harvest of whatever herb is taking over the garden, being out under the sun is quite unbearable. 
     The harvests are proving quite productive.  So far I've gotten large harvests of oregano, basil, dill, stevia, swiss chard, and onions.  In fact, yesterday I spent the majority of the afternoon harvesting and preparing my onions to be frozen for this fall.

Done!

     I now have four bags of chopped onions for winter soups and one bag of small onions for stew!  :)

Yum!

      I also got a nice harvest of Swiss Chard for last night's dinner.  

Chard is a little bit...soapy when eaten fresh but can be heavenly!  Here's my super simple recipe:

 Ingredients:

Chard (however much you have)

Olive oil (eye-ball it)

Garlic salt (about 4-5 dashes)

     Tear the leaves into strips and throw it in a pan with enough olive oil to lightly cover the bottom of the pan.  Cook on medium until leaves are a rich green and then add garlic salt and you're done!  See, wasn't that easy?   These greens taste amazing with grilled tuna patties (I'll get that recipe up soon because it's also amazing) or just by themselves.

     Oh, and if any of the leaves turn olive green remove them because they taste terrible and they're slimy. 

    

Enjoy your greens and happy gardening!

kaJo